In The Mornings
by the point
Summary: In the mornings, she preferred to be alone, grinding and weighing in the Hyuga pharmacy. When everyone was still asleep, Hinata made sure that they were safe. ONE-SHOT. For DateMe January 2010 Challenge!


**For the DateMe's January 2010 Challenge! The theme is "Me, Myself & I!" Hope you guys like it!**

**In The Mornings**

The morning dew clung to her pyjamas as she trudged through the garden, the grass brushing by her ankles and the leaves sliding passed her in a soft hiss. It was not yet sunrise, but the sky had the telltale hints of blue and green and sun that promised a mild summer's day. From one corner of the garden, a morning dove sounded, a song of even intervals of rising and falling vocals. Hidden underneath the foliage of an apple tree was a squirrel cracking open a walnut. These were her companions every morning and Hinata welcomed them with a smile as she lifted her hand to sweep her fingers along the lapageria roseas trailing along the compound's walls.

So quiet. So still. So even-mannered. The morning was like the Hyuga, a whispered hush that followed after her footsteps imprinted on the grass and soil, her braid swaying along the curve of her back, stray strands floating like spores in the air. She hummed to herself then, a lullaby that she had learned from her mother, as her naked toes traced along the stone pathways. The koi were still asleep while she came to a stop before a bed of herbs, her eyes sliding along the four walls of the garden in speculation.

Several of the servants had woke by now, silent spirits who floated down the open corridors of the Hyuga Main House. Whenever they were to cross paths, they would bow their heads in quiet reverence and say nothing. Hinata had always been, generally, alone in the mornings.

She knelt to settle down beside the plot of herbs, her hands carefully smoothing out her pyjamas pants, slipping the cotton underneath her knees. With the sun slowly peaking up from the horizon, she mapped out the fragile veins and creases of the herbal leaves with her fingers, feeling for freshness and scenting their potency stained on her fingertips. Brushing aside her bangs, she mentally took inventory of the ingredients already in the clan's pharmacy before plucking at the mint and dill. A little ways off, she clipped several stalks of aloe and Artemisia. Finally, when the sound of the Hyuga morning training intruded on the morning's silence, she gathered the meadowsweet and comfrey into her arms and retreated into the House.

Her bare feet padded down the hardwood, the edges of her pyjamas, soaked from the morning's dew, left watery smears along the floor as she went. She slid passed her father's private quarters, catching the sound of her father in the midst of putting on his clothes, and crept passed her sister's rooms, hearing her brush her teeth. She passed the kitchen, the living room, the breakfast room, down a hall, another hall, and into that small wing that flourished with the scents of ginseng and ginger.

Straightening her clothes, she put on the slippers by the door and entered the Hyuga pharmacy, an old and oriental-styled room. Along all four walls of the room were floor-to-ceiling cherry wood cabinets and drawers, filled to the brim with dang gui, atractylodes and wolfberry. On one table sat glass jars of the most beautiful dried lingzhi mushrooms and shark fins anyone had ever seen, and Hinata knew that she would never see them be used in her lifetime, more inheritances than for use.

Placing the fresh herbs she had just taken from the garden down on a table – her designated working space, she quickly opened several cabinets and drawers for the other ingredients. Several were dried, others fresh in the refrigerator. Several were fruits, but mostly herbs. She laid them, jars and handfuls and stalks – one by one – on her table before reaching for the bronze scale, the stone abacus, the marble pestle and mortar, the surgical steel knife, the metal scissors, the calligraphy brush, the black ink and the rice paper.

Once everything was accounted for, she fixed her hair back and began to grind, slice and cut the herbs at the appropriate portions. Dust lifted from the dried goji berries, juice flowed from the fresh dandelions, and the scent of rosemary tinted the air. The bronze scale squeaked under the weight of the cinnamon, and the marble pestle and mortar stained green at the peppermint. All the while she made efficient notes and inventory on the rice paper, counting the necessary amounts needed after her cousin's latest mission and referencing the excesses required by her sister for her long mission next week. Hinata always made sure to be (at least) a week ahead of her immediate family in their schedules. The Hyuga staff made sure to be (at least) _two_ weeks ahead of her.

She mixed the different herbs together, sprinkling flower petals in to offset the heavy medicinal scent, and put a stopper on each jar. With masking tape and a marker, she labelled the names of several active Hyuga ninja on the jars, names that she had grown both fond and familiar with from over the years. Each stroke, each line, each character – she knew that she could not always be with them out in the battlefield, but it gave her some reprieve (as it did them) to be a part of them in some way, a part of the healing process that promised sanctuary once they were back within the Hyuga walls… back home.

It was one of the many ways Hinata undertook to help them.

The gentle sound of the marker being capped and the echo of the last jar being placed on the table, and she done. Hurriedly, she put away the herbs in their appropriate places and washed the instruments. She could hear the sound of breakfast nearing and she had yet to get dressed! Slightly flustered, she straightened the many medicinal jars on the table, freshly made, and touched each one with a motherly affection, the names reflected in her white, pupil-less eyes: Neji… Hanabi… Ko, Hoheto, Tokuma… _father_.

More than a dozen, lined up so neatly along the glossy cherry wood of the table – lined up so perfectly to defend their beloved village and to uphold their clan's honour… It was the least she could do for them, quietly and alone in the mornings, when they had done so much, and would continue to do so, for her.

Pulling her hair loose from her braid, pyjamas now dry, the Hyuga heiress left the pharmacy quietly, satisfied knowing that her clan – her family – was now just a little bit safer. A few hours out of her sleep was worth it, and she smiled as she slipped a jar into her sister's knapsack.

_Anything_ was worth it for her family.

Anything.

**the point**


End file.
